


Picture Perfect

by AliceMalefoy



Category: Actor RPF, Danish Actor RPF, Vikings (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Photographer, F/M, Photography
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 14:06:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15730953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliceMalefoy/pseuds/AliceMalefoy
Summary: Sometimes, the view is too good not to snap a quick shot.





	Picture Perfect

The snow just kept getting on his lens, and the gods help him, he was slowly losing patience. Like every week-end he took a stroll around town, finding a reasonably deserted park or street and tried to capture a few moments. He should have known to bring his bigger camera today as it was snowing – not heavily but enough to be a nuisance.

He cleaned his lens for the umpteenth times and quickly placed the camera back in front of his face the second he heard footsteps approaching, the soft crunch of the snow under their boots betraying their presence.

First a little dog in a sweatshirt came into view, making him smile and snap a picture – just for laughs – then its owner entered the range. An old man, followed by a second dog. He was white haired, his face wearing the signs of time, and his jacket looked a bit large on him.

Alex snapped another picture just when the man reached for treats in his pockets and the two dogs immediately sat in front of him, waggling their tails in expectation of what was to come. He smiled as he tossed the treats, sending them both running after them.

Looking at the photograph he just took, Alex smiled to himself. Over time he had become good at capturing just the right moment, the exact expression he wanted. After that he went on the move again – this place was a bit too void of people for his taste. He usually liked to be able to pick his subject and not have to mind the crowd around him, that's why his preference leaned towards open spaces with few people.

It was Sunday after all, he should have expected not many people would willingly brave the Danish Winter on a day off. So instead of his usual spots he decided to head for town until he found a place he deemed appropriate.

It was freezing today, but at least it wasn't too humid. Alex rubbed his hands together, cursing himself for wearing fingerless gloves – but it was necessary if he wanted to be able to whip out his camera and take a picture when the opportunity for a good shot arose. As he made his way towards the most lively part of Copenhagen he stopped at a coffee shop and ordered the first hot drink he saw on the menu, just so his fingers wouldn't fall off.

While he stood in the coffee shop he undid his bun, then put his beanie back on, in an attempt to warm up his ears too. He really picked the worst day to scout the streets of the city in hopes of finding the perfect subject. Well, he only had himself to blame, he should have gotten to work yesterday but instead chose to sit in front of a video game all day long.

With a discouraged sigh, he exited the warm premises. His feet took him to the small, narrow alleys perpendicular to the big shopping streets – he always marvelled at how few people strayed from the path and actually explored those streets with nothing but tiny stores, tattoo shops, not very well known coffee places, and art galleries.

He liked to hang out there in between classes instead of going back to his apartment, where it was lonely and silent. Here he had the background noise from the nearby shopping streets, and the tranquillity of half-empty cafés.

In the end he had to cut short his day because it was simply too cold and windy to spend the day outside without catching his own death. After the third hot drink of the day he deemed he was caffeinated enough, and when the effects of the last coffee wore off, he called it a day.

But it was just then, round a corner and sitting on a bench that he saw the perfect picture. A girl sat there, searching for something in her bag – and not finding it according to the frown on her face. A handful of seconds later, her whole face lit up and she pulled a glove out of her purse. She sighed in content as she put it on before rubbing her hands together, bringing them to her mouth and exhaling hot air on them, no doubt to bring her frozen fingers back to life.

The bench she was sitting on faced one of the city's numerous churches, and the street was nearly void of people short of the two of them. If Alex didn't start moving soon, she would notice him observing her.

He detailed her for a short while, taking in her appearance. Her hair was a bit of a mess, but that must be the wind's fault. She wore a thick beige winter coat that hugged her waist and reached her thighs, black tights and brown leather boots that went up to her knees, and a gigantic scarf.

Suddenly she took a book out of her bag and she opened it. Alex's eyebrows shot up in surprise. Who in their right mind would come out here in the cold to read a book? That's also when he realized it had stopped snowing – though it was still very windy.

She didn't seem to mind though, and a fond smile adorned her lips as her eyes scanned the page, as if she was amused by whatever she read.

Without thinking, Alex grabbed his camera and snapped a few shots, capturing the odd but dainty sight before his eyes.

Before the girl felt his eyes on her, Alex walked away, not even looking at the result of the pictures he took – he knew they were the best ones he took today, and by far.

  
  


*

  
  


It wasn't intentional at all or at least that's what Alex told himself – but three days later, when he had two hours of free time in between classes, he ended up at the exact same spot he saw the mystery girl the week-end before. It was ridiculous, the chances of this girl hanging out at the exact same bench to read her book were so slim it border-lined on desperation to come here again.

He felt stupid now, standing here, staring at an empty bench as though she would appear out of thin air if he stared hard enough.

It wasn't hit fault, he just couldn't get her out of his mind. After returning to the warmth and comfort of his apartment he nearly jumped to his desk, immediately plugging his camera to his laptop to see how the photos turned out. They were incredible, he couldn't remember being so happy with his photographs in his life. Maybe he had found his perfect model, and he let her slip through his fingers because he didn't want to look like a creep taking pictures of strangers in the street.

Which he did. So perhaps he was. He chased that thought away. The point was: he needed to find her again, he needed more pictures, and if it meant coming here every fucking day of the week, then he would do it. Clearly she lived here – first off all it wasn't tourist season at all, and secondly, if she was only here to visit she wouldn't spent her days reading a book on a bench.

Granted Copenhagen was a big city, but he could hope, right? Fortune smiles upon the bold – or something like that. So Alex began to walk the surrounding streets, peeking inside every café he walked past, just in case, and ended up where he started.

Maybe fortune would smile on him tomorrow.

  
  


*

  
  


The doorbell rang when she stepped inside the small, darkly lit shop, and she smiled to the owner – she was a loyal customer and she knew her way around this little shop better than her own place. The owner, an old man with frame-less spectacles nodded as she walked past him, and gestured towards a freshly delivered pile of books.

She had the privilege of looking through the new stuff before he put it on the shelves for the other customers.

“Read them all already?” The man asked, sitting down behind the front desk.

“Not all of them,” she answered, already kneeling down to have a closer look. It was a small second hand books shop where all the books were piled onto each other, making the whole place look packed. “But I had some errands to ran around here, so I thought I'd come.”

“You're the first person to come today,” the man sighed. “People just don't read as much as they used to.”

“I know,” she said.

They fell into comfortable silence after that and half an hour later the girl had picked five books and paid for them. She left with a heartfelt goodbye and went on her way. She closed the door behind her, making the bell ring again, and when she turned around she nearly bumped into a passer-by and tripped on her feet when she tried to avoid them.

“Gotcha!” The person exclaimed when they caught her _in extremis_ before she face planted on the cold hard ground, along with her bag of books. “You okay?”

She quickly regained her balance, and when the other person let go of her she blushed like nobody's business. Attracting this kind of attention was the worst – now she would forever be the girl who tripped on her own feet to this strange. An attractive stranger at that, which only made her lose more of her composure.

As far as first impressions go, she could do better.

“I- I'm sorry, I'm fine. I'm really sorry, I... wasn't looking,” she stammered out, not knowing what to do with herself – if she could just vanish on the spot that would be ideal. “Thank you,” she added when her last two brain cells caught up on the situation and reminded her of basic social rules.

She damn near ran away from this young, hot stranger with blue eyes before she could further embarrass herself and all of her ancestors by stuttering out some more basic nonsense. When would she learn how to speak? You'd figure a twenty-something cinema major who destined herself to be a screenwriter would know how to use words even in awkward situations, but she just didn't.

Granted this was a particularly cliché situation – she could literally name ten movies off the top of her head that used the girl-runs-into-hot-guy as a first meeting trope – but that only made it worse that she fled like a coward. She should know the dialogue by heart by now. She should be able to turn the tables and walk away with dignity.

But she didn't. She has always been more comfortable with writing than speaking, but this was a huge fail, even for her. She wasn't usually _that_ socially impaired. She face palmed and walked on, hoping that this was the last she saw of the stranger.

  
  


*

  
  


He couldn't be a hundred percent sure, but Alex thought he bumped into his unknowing model last week in town. It all happened so fast he couldn't be certain it was her, but she was once again holding books and her hair was a mess, and she also wore a beige coat.

Then again this description matched a lot of girls. She scurried away so fast he didn't even get a chance to say anything to her, let alone ask her if she was his mystery girl.

This time around he didn't have his preferred camera, but his silver process camera that he used for softer pictures, and a more authentic finish result. Nonetheless, he snapped a quick picture of the girl while she walked away, her coat longer than he remember billowing slightly behind her as it caught the wind.

And now he waited. He waited because he only brought his camera to his local shop two days ago to have his photos developed, and he was told to come pick them up tomorrow. Talk about an impatient man, Alex couldn't wait to compare this new shot to the previous ones, to see if it was the same girl, despite the different angle and the fact that he couldn't see her face on the second one.

A lead was a lead, and if he somehow accidentally found a book store she shopped at, it would be the perfect setting for a meeting.

“Hey man, snap out of it!” Franz snapped his fingers in front of Alex's eyes to make him come back to earth. “You know it's freaky as hell when you zone out, you just stop blinking altogether.”

“Sorry,” Alex apologized and tried to bring his attention back on the lecture.

It wasn't his favourite kind of classes, lectures. He tended to get bored really quickly as he was a very energetic person – though some people might just say he has minor ADHD – and he liked it better when he could expand his knowledge through experience rather than boring lectures given by a teacher speaking in a monotonous voice.

“Still thinking about that girl, huh? It's a wild goose chase you're on. I'd let it go it I were you, there are literally hundreds of thousands of people living in this city, how the hell do you think you'll find her?”

“I'm counting on luck and fate,” Alex replied with a sly smirk, knowing it drove Franz crazy when he did that.

It was his thing to rely entirely on external influences to achieve his goals, and it was _maddening_ to everyone around him that it _worked_ \- most of the time. It was indecent to be this lucky, but it wasn't magic either, and Alex had ended up in situations that ranged from awkward to severely bad because of this.

“Of course you are,” Franz grumbled, returning his attention to the teacher and leaving Alex to his delusions. “If you somehow find this girl and she agrees to go out with you, I'll even pay for your first date,” he snickered.

“Who said I wanted to go out with her? I just want her to model for me,” Alex replied, his eyebrows shooting up. “But you know what? I'll take it. A free dinner is a free dinner.”

“So where d'you plan on taking her? Do I need to make a student loan?” Franz continued to snicker, making fun of Alex's optimistic nature.

“Why do you insist I want to take her out?”

“Man, no one is obsessed with a girl just because she looks pretty on a picture,” he stated in a flat tone, as if he thought is was too obvious to even say out loud. “You have a bad case of love at first sight.”

“I do not,” Alex argued, cringing. “I'll prove it! I'll find her first, and then-”

“Then what?”

Damn Franz, he sounded so cocky what with his raised eyebrow and dumb grin.

“Then I'll take more pictures and nothing else, I'm not looking for a girlfriend,” he huffed, pointing his finger at his friend. “And you'll take back what you said!”

“And you'll pass up a good opportunity to take a pretty girl out at my expenses, so who's really winning in this situation?” Franz pointed out.

“I hate you,” Alex grumbled, short of having a good answer.

They became silent again and simply stared blankly at the board and the teacher. Alex mulled over what Franz said, and he eventually came to the conclusion that he was right. Whatever the outcome, he'll win. In both cases Alex would have a new model, and either prove a point to his friend or he'd get a date with a beautiful girl.

So why fret? All he needed to do now was find her. And get this damn photograph developed.

  
  


*

  
  


The paranoia became real after the fourth time she thought she heard the click of a camera while she was out in town. As a creature of habit, she spent a lot of her free time at the same places – the same local book-store, the same coffee shop that made her favourite drink, the same bench that was somehow always unoccupied, as if waiting for her.

But these days she felt like the bench wasn't the only one waiting for her. Which was an insane notion, because who on earth would watch her? Did she have a stalker now? Had she watched too many thrillers lately? A possibility.

So she waved off her worries and sat down to read as per usual, if the weather permitted it. Until another week later, when she walked down the stairs of the coffee shop that made the best chai tea in town, and she heard it again. This time there was no mistaking the sound, she didn't just hallucinate it, and there was someone, somewhere taking pictures – possibly of her.

So far her curiosity prevailed, and instead of running away and scream bloody murder, she decided to discreetly look around to find her stalker. If stalker there was. And she was not disappointed.

From a seat at the coffee house across the narrow street, Alex snapped a shot of the girl. He'd received his second photograph, the one of the girl from the book store, and established that it was indeed his mystery girl. From then on he just went to the book store again and again, day after day, in hopes of seeing her there – for a week straight.

She didn't come, but he saw her again by coincidence – though at this point one could argue they were past sheer coincidence. This was fate at work. He had to talk to her.

But every time an opportunity showed, he missed the window. Instead of manning up and introducing himself, Alex ended up taking a picture or two – or three – and left. Each shot was better than the previous one, each more stunning, more natural. It felt like the elements worked in her favour too, the wind blowing her hair just at the right time, the rain making her clothes heavier, the snow clinging to her, the sun shining on her brown hair and giving her a soft halo.

Alex was awestruck each time, and he hated it because it meant Franz was right, and Franz couldn't be right. He needed a model, he found a muse. He didn't dare think she could become anything more.

The thought itself was abstract and a bit of a stretch. To become anything else but the stranger he stalked on the streets, Alex would first need to get it together and introduce himself.

He almost did it today, he very, _very_ nearly did it. She was walking down the flight of stairs leading to the door of this small café probably no one but her knew about, shielded herself from the elements with her umbrella while she sipped her drink.

He should buy her a coffee next time he spots her reading on her bench, and explain he's been taking pictures of her. Or maybe a cold drink, just in case she decided to throw it in his face. The more time he allowed to pass, the weirder it became to take these pictures – it didn't sit right on his stomach.

On the one hand it wasn't like he wore camouflage and hit in bushes, waiting for the right time to steal yet another pictures of this girl. He still took loads of other pictures, other people than her. She was simply the best, therefore he always came back. And then on the other hand, his folder of stolen pictures was growing, and he had to admit he would be weirded out if someone did to him what he did to her.

After another while, Alex stopped seeking her out on purpose, yet he still found himself in all the places where she hung out. He'd spent so much time walking around to find her that he got used to this part of town, he found some nice places he liked to go back to. And more often than he would like, he still ended up taking pictures.

Now she was everywhere. She was on his mind, in the streets, on the pictures. Maybe he was going crazy? Maybe she didn't even exist, and he'd lost it? Franz thought so anyway, even though Alex showed him some pictures. He agreed that they were good, great even, but he didn't understand Alex's fixation.

Clearly there was more to it than what he said. No matter how much he argued that he only wanted her as model, his friend didn't believe a word of it. He was smitten, and that was the end of it. This revelation felt like a cold shower, and from then on, Alex tried to keep his stalkerish ways to a minimum. Then again, it was easier said than done, especially when he spotted her casually walking by while he was out to finish an assignment at a café or something.

A lot of the time it actually felt like she was posing, just waiting for a photoshoot to start. If he didn't know any better he would think she knew he photographed her – but let's be real for a hot second, no girl in her right mind would let a stranger take pictures of her.

Because that's what he was: a complete and total stranger. She couldn't possibly remember him from the one time she bumped into him, and even if she did, it still didn't make him anything but a stranger to her, they didn't talk, they didn't exchange names.

Alex wished he knew her name.

  
  


*

  
  


She wanted to _die_. A few days of hyper awareness of her surroundings made her spot her mystery photographer, and when she recognized him she felt her soul depart her body and astral project into another plane of existence.

The hot guy with blue eyes. The guy she made a fool out of herself in front of. The guy to whom she apologized to several times despite doing nothing wrong, and then ran away from like he was a diseased.

Now that his identity wasn't a mystery anymore, she felt a little better. Her brain seemed to think that having a hot stranger take sneaky pictures of her was a lot better, a lot safer, than if it was an old disgusting creep. She didn't say anything to her friends because surely they would think her mad. _Uhmm yes a really hot guy I ran into on the street is now obsessed with me and follows me around to take pictures. Have I mentioned that he's really cute?_ They would laugh in her face and tell her to stop watching American teen movies – her guilty pleasure.

Instead of allowing herself to properly freak out over this and run to the police station to report him, she willed herself to calm down and think about the situation. First she needed to determine if he was a mentally imbalanced creep and if her life was threatened. So far it didn't seem so, he stayed far away, didn't try to communicate. Maybe she was imagining things and he took pictures of a lot of different people around this part of town?

Yes, that was entirely possible, if not the most logical explanation of all. She wasn't stalker victim material, she was too boring for that. Nothing ever happened in her life. A tired groan fell from her lips at that thought.

Although he was very attractive, and she caught herself thinking it wouldn't be so bad to have become the reluctant object of desire of a cutie like him more than once. _God, if only I didn't embarrass myself in front of him! I wish I'd met a guy like that under different circumstances, make a better first impression, get a chance to shine in a better light_! A girl can dream.

Yet, as though the gods heard her wish, the very next day when she went to class, she saw him. At least she thought she saw him, maybe she had become more paranoid than she first thought and started seeing him everywhere. She stopped dead in her track, alarming her friends, and stared without an ounce of shame or care for being discreet. Her friends shook her out of her state of daze and she gathered her wits just in time to see him walk through a door, his signature camera around the neck.

“Hey!” She called him, but she knew she was too far away, and he wouldn't know she was calling _him_ out of all the people in this hallway. “Hey wait!”

“Who are you talking to?” Her friend asked, frowning a bit in concern and tugging at her sleeve. “It's time, we have to go to class.”

She nodded, still trying to see where exactly he went, what room it was.

“Who was it anyway?” Her friend pressed her.

“I just... I thought I recognized someone,” she answered vaguely, but she was one hundred percent sure it was him. She knew what he looked like, she just knew.

Could she be any more lucky?

  
  


*

  
  


Could Alex be any more unlucky?

He sat at the park, leaning back on his elbows and soaking in some sun now that the days became warmer. He waited for a friend, and even left his camera at home, which he rarely ever did. Then, right there, he saw his mystery girl. He was far from her usual hangout spots, he wasn't looking for her, he wasn't expecting to see her – he actually hadn't seen her in over a week now.

He took the habit of going to town to take pictures now, despite not searching for her anymore – he had somewhat given up on ever talking to her. She was an ethereal being, surrounded by mystery, and he was scared that putting a name on her face was going to ruin what he found so captivating about her, so she would remain so.

Ridiculous. He just chickened out of chatting her up. As the days, then weeks went by, he realized that Franz had been right all along. Alex had developed feelings for someone he didn't even know, and he felt it was too late to introduce himself now.

There was no chance in the world this girl would agree to be anywhere near him. He spent weeks sneaking shots of her, and looking for her like a true creep in his own right. If he could rewind the tape of his life and go back to that first day when he saw her read in the cold, he would do it in a heartbeat. He would say hi, ask her if she wanted to go grab a coffee, even if he already had three at this point in time.

But he couldn't go back, and he couldn't wipe the slate clean, because the slate was full of photographs of her he took without her consent. He didn't do anything with them in the end, didn't turn them in for one of his assignments, didn't use them for any project. He didn't feel like he had the right to. They sat in a folder on his desktop, and he looked at them when he needed inspiration.

So he didn't move a muscle when she walked past him, oblivious to the fact that he knew her - to her he was just anther face in the crowd.

Then Alex's heart skipped a beat, and he swallowed thickly. Their eyes locked for the briefest moment – so brief he couldn't swear it actually happened. But he knew in his heart of hearts that she looked his way. No just his way, but straight in his eyes. Not in the way one roamed the crowd and locked eyes with a random person, no. She looked him in the eyes, on purpose, as if she recognized him.

It messed with his head a little bit, and Alex felt uneasy enough to get up and walk to another hill in the park once she was out of sight.

What a strange day. And stranger the rest of the week would be, unbeknownst to him.

  
  


*

  
  


The more time passed, the less worried she became.

The little voice in the back of her head told her she should be at least a little bit concerned that some guy she saw once outside a book store suddenly developed an obsession with her to the point where he stalked her and took pictures of her. The little voice even suggested she goes to the police.

But she did her own fair share of stalking in return, and the day she saw him in her building on campus was the day she stopped worrying altogether. The attractive boy from the book store was an Art student majoring in photography if she did her stalking right. Who else would go to class with a heavy camera bag and a tripod?

When she realized she became the accidental muse of a photographer in becoming, she relaxed. Now she was amused more than flustered or embarrassed at the thought, and reassured, in an odd way, by the notion that he might simply be too shy to ask her to pose. Who knew she would enjoy the attention? She caught herself playing along on more than one occasion, posing for her secret admirer, and putting more care in her choice of outfits.

She hoped it didn't show too much, but still looked the way he wanted it to.

What started worrying her was when he slowly stopped waiting for her at her reading bench, or by her coffee shop. She learned to spot him easily – his long brown hair, either falling free or tied in a bun, his big black framed glasses, his hooded sweaters layered with a jacket, his grey sweat pants.

Disappointment showed its ugly face when she realized he probably lost interest in her. Until that day at the park, when she saw him. He wasn't taking pictures for once – in fact it was the first time she saw him without his camera. And she got caught staring. For a second that lasted a lot longer than that in her mind, they couldn't tear their eyes off each other.

But luckily her feet kept walking, and when she exited the park she could breathe again. She felt reinvigorated, as though a new life was breathed into her. And she decided to stop being the girl on the pictures. Next time she saw him, she would talk to him.

She wasn't that shy once the ice was broken, but she needed to give herself a good pep talk before taking the oh so scary first step.

  
  


*

  
  


Like any girl would do when she was on a mission, she dressed in black, wore sunglasses even though there was no sun, and a beret. Because berets were _so_ inconspicuous and so... so French. Al right, she had no idea what she was doing, but she was doing her best, it had to count for something.

She counted on the little episode at the park to spike his interest again, and hoped he would come out of his lair to find her today. It was Monday, which was the day she saw him most often, the day she usually read on the bench in between classes over lunch. She picked a café with tables outside, one that had a perfect view of her bench, and sat in a corner, next to a huge plant that would hopefully hide her.

And she waited with a coffee in hand, and a book in the other. He sometimes sat here to take her picture so chances were he would pick a table here too. Her plan was flawless on paper.

She finished the fifth chapter when she caught the familiar sight of him from the corner of her eye, and she closed her book abruptly. He ordered something, and when the waiter left, she took a deep breath, mentally braced herself, took off her sunglasses and beret, shoving them in her bag, and she stood up.

Her heart speed up like a race horse on the startling line. She closed her eyes, stopped breathing, and sat down across from him, to his visible astonishment. It was done.

“I wasn't sure you'd show up but I'm glad you did,” she told him, surprising herself with how smoothly it came out. Why was it so difficult to talk to pretty boys?

In the few seconds it took him to recognize her, understand what was happening, and decide on a course of action, she had the time to settle down and even her breathing.

“This conversation is long overdue, isn't it?” He eventually said, leaning back against his chair, a crooked smile dancing on his lips. God he was attractive.

She nodded, because she was momentarily struck dumb by how good he looked.

“I- uhm... I'm curious as to how you're going to explain why you've been following me around, taking sneaky pictures. You do realize I could have gone to the police?” She somehow managed to say, though not helping the little hesitation at the beginning.

“Why didn't you?” He replied, crossing his arms over his chest and raising his eyebrows.

Oh, he wanted to play it like that? Fine. As hot as he was, she wasn't going to turn the other cheek. She came here to get answers to _her_ questions.

“You first, smartass!” She snorted, mirroring his own stance.

He looked up, as if deciding whether or not to oblige her. In the end he sighed and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and pointer finger, finally speaking up.

“I was just out, hunting for a good shot. I photograph people, that's what I do. But don't worry you can't even see your face on any of the shots I made of you, except one. The first one,” he told her. He said that as if it was supposed to reassure her in some way. “When I saw you reading your book on that bench I thought it was... picture perfect. Couldn't resist.”

“So when exactly did I become your Woman in Red?" She asked in a rare show of boldness and sarcasm.

She usually went about things with a dash of subtlety.

“My _what_?” He frowned.

“It's- it's just a movie,” she said, chasing away the thought. She was used to people not getting her references, but this guy seemed to wait for her to continue her explanation. “About a man who sees a beautiful woman dressed in red and becomes obsessed with her, he desperately wants to meet her, but he's already married.”

Alex thought about it, and let out a little interested 'huh', while staring at her. He nodded, approving her comparison and mentally taking note to watch that movie.

“I actually just wanted to find you to ask you to model for me, but things didn't go as planned,” he groaned, rubbing his face in frustration.

It was hard to process that the mystery girl was sitting across from him right now, fishing out information. And when he said things out loud they sounded ten times worse than in his head.

“Do elaborate, I'm all ears.”

She was so glad her voice and face didn't betray her today, because she wouldn't have survived another round of whatever the bell happened outside the book store weeks ago.   
“The book store.” This seemed to prompt a reaction from her even though she tried to keep it cool. “It was you, right? I knew it! But I wasn't sure when it happened, you ran away so fast!”

“Sorry about that,” she apologized with a faint blush.

“I took a quick picture of you that day just to compare it to the first one, to make sure it was really you. When I decided the resemblance couldn't just be a coincidence I thought 'great, now I know what book store she goes to'. I decided to hang out there so I could talk to you then, but you never showed up.”

He seemed to have finally decided to spill the beans and tell her everything.

“Every time I saw you it was like you were just waiting for me. Already posing for the perfect picture, so I took one. And another. And another. And the more time passed the less inclined I was to talk to you, because at this point I knew I'd have to admit I was taking pictures without your consent and I'd have to explain that I started hanging out here just in hopes to get a good shot of you. You do understand that I wasn't fond of the prospect? A girl with more common sense than you would obviously have gotten a restraining order against me.”

“Hey!” She protested. “I have my reasons for not going to the police I'll have you know. Just like you have your reasons for not just saying 'hi, can I take a picture of you?'”

“ _Touché_. Anyway I thought it was too late to introduce myself now, so I settled for taking a picture when I saw you, and I stopped trying to force a meeting. Thought I'd leave you alone.”

“What made you change your mind?” She now asked out of sheer misplaced curiosity and no longer to get answers to her questions. He'd answered them all anyway.

“Hey, hey, hey, enough with the questions! First you answer mine and then I tell you all my secrets! Christ this is worse than a police questioning!”

“Oh you have experience in that department I see,” she teased him. “It's simple I knew you weren't some psycho who had an altar with a wall covered in blurry pictures of me, so I let you take pictures.”

She shrugged and Alex seriously put her sanity in question.

“You think you're good at taking pictures discreetly? You're not. You're the worst ninja photographer of all time. When I finally realized someone was watching me, I paid attention. I saw that it was you - the guy from the book store - and from then on I knew what you looked like and one day I saw you at uni. We have class in the same building by the way. I'm in cinema and I know you're in photography.”

“What a small world!” He said, his voice dripping in irony.

“So yeah. Not some creep with a voodoo doll that looks like me, just a student taking pictures of everyone he saw. No biggie. Though it is flattering that you kept coming back to take mine, I admit.”  
“This is so far from the reaction I expected in case you ever found out. I can't believe you spied on me like I spied on you. I feel weird...” Alex made a face and ran a hand over his chest as if he could better put a word on it by touching the source of the feeling directly.

“I'm sure you do. It's called getting a taste of your own medicine.”

“So you've known I was taking your picture for some time. Yet you let me do, and you say its flattering? Does this mean I wasn't imagining things when I saw you pose for me?”

“Couldn't help myself.” She shot him a mischievous smile. “What else was I supposed to do? You weren't asking me to model for you, and it was always better than freaking out.”

“My bad.”

“Now back to my question! You stopped coming here lately, what made you change your mind?”

Alex didn't answer and instead chose to focus on the empty coffee cup sitting on the table, his fingers spinning it around.

“Was it perhaps our little moment at the park yesterday?” She ventured. Alex flinched and the cup slipped from between his fingers, falling to the ground. “I take this as a yes.”

“So what? You've tricked me into coming back? You could have talked to me at the park,” he huffed, slightly offended that he got played so easily.

“There was no point in talking if you'd abandoned the idea of photographing me, I wanted to see if you were still interested.”

She now leaned on her elbows over the table.

“And instead of sitting on the bench I picked this coffee shop. Today's Monday, the day I see you most often. And I know you like this coffee shop best to sneak pictures, it has a good view of the bench. So I sat in the corner over there and I waited patiently,” she started explaining, pointing at the table she was sitting at earlier. “You're late, you know that? Made me wait over an hour. I was starting to think you'd stood me up.”

“It would need to be a date to stand you up,” he pointed out, trying to play smarty pants with her.

“Well there must be something you like about me given how many times I caught you looking at me.” She shrugged and he stared in shock. “Besides I think it's high time we introduce ourselves. We at least ought to get to know each other's names given how much mutual stalking has been going on between us.”

“Fair point, I'll give you that. You played your cards very well, I admit my defeat.”

“So in case you need to put a name on your stalker folder, I'm (Y/N)," she laughed. “And yes, I would love to go out with you.”

“Alex Høgh Andersen, full time photography student and stalker in training,” he said, holding out his hand for a very formal but sarcastic handshake. “And I don't remember asking you out,” he added with a sly smirk.

“Really? My bad, I must have heard wrong. I thought you said you were meaning to talk to me but chickened out, and that's why we're in this situation in the first place.”

“I said I wanted to ask you to model for me.”

“Isn't that art student code for 'i want to take her to a candle lit dinner, bring her home, ravish her against a wall, and in the morning when the first rays of sunlight hit her sleeping form I'll take an aesthetic nude of her with my Polaroid camera and hang it above my bed'.”

Alex looked like she'd just smacked him with a wet towel across the face. He felt like choking on thin air, and didn't know to say to that.

“I honestly am not aware of a code for such a specific thing,” he ended up saying. She was smiling a bit, mischief still glowing in her eyes, and despite the odd situation and the unlikelihood of it all, he smiled back and braced himself. “But I guess we can coin this code word if you want. My bedroom wall is in need of some tasteful decoration after all.”

“Do you want my number or is it already in your stalker folder?” (Y/N) asked, raising a reading brow.

Alex held out his pointer finger.

“I do _not_ have a stalker folder. I'll let you see all the pictures if you want. I can guarantee they are all anonymous, no one can see your face.”

“Inviting me to your place already!” She laughed. “I can't wait to see your work.”

She winked playfully but she sounded sincere, and suddenly Alex wondered why he was so scared of talking to her. She was a lot funnier than he expected - she looked so serious and dignified when he looked at her through the camera lens.

He took his phone out of his pocket and let her dial in her number while he did the same with her phone. The exchange was quick though their conversation lasted longer than he suspected. They were soon asked to leave because the place was closing, and so they walked away.

“You're different from what I thought. After you almost bumped into me when you came out of the book store I thought you were one of those introverted bookworms with zero social skill and confidence. Another reason why I didn't talk to you, even after I established you were the girl from the bench. If I had asked you to be my muse and you had refused, I would have had to stop, of course. But as long as you didn't know, you couldn't say no.”

“Sketchy logic Alex! Very sketchy!” (Y/N) told him, shaking her head in disapproval.

“I know, but thank you for pointing it out,” he retorted, making her face and rolling his eyes.

“I also notice I got an upgrade from model to muse. This is getting better and better.”

If she wasn't smiling so big and bright and so genuinely Alex might have felt insulted, but he could only smile back.

“They're not the same thing. And they are not mutually inclusive either.”

“Oh I know, I'm just mentally ticking off all the titles you have for me,” she chuckled.

They had started walking aimlessly through the empting streets - neither of them lived in that direction (unbeknownst to each other), they only walked to get some more time together at this point.

“One more thing-” Alex began, gaining her full attention. “I have a friend, Franz. He was so sure you'd blow me off that he bet me a full date, dinner included, that you'd never go out with me even if I decided to talk to you.”

“Well I think I'm the one who talked to you, so...” Alex snorted and he bumped against her shoulder. “Are we going to be nice and do the classic movies and pizza date?”

“Absolutely not. We're gonna make him regret ever betting against me, name whichever fancy place you've ever wanted to go to,” Alex snickered and smiled in a twisted way.

(Y/N) had a strange thought that if they were in a cartoon he'd rub his hands together and do an evil laughter. It brought a grin to her face.

“I'll think about it. Before we go any further I have to tell you something though.” They stopped dead in their tracks, Alex tensed at the seriousness in her voice. “I... I actually live in the other direction.”

The confession first surprised him, then made him laugh, and she swatted him for laughing at her.

“Me too," he said, continuing to laugh. “Me too.”

  
  
  
 **Bonus**  
  
“Oh wait!” Alex stopped walking to look inside a small printer shop, yanking (Y/N), who was holding onto his arm, back. “It's still open, great. I have a quick errand to run. Wait here.”

He didn't give her a chance to argue and simply ran inside. (Y/N) quietly stood there, studying the window of a _galerie_ across the road, humming to herself like an elevator playing background music. A couple minutes later he came back with a small plastic bag in hand.

“What is it?” She asked out of curiosity.

“Polaroid film.” He smirked down at her.

 


End file.
